


Minutiae

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Series: The Last Time You Slept [4]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bad Guys Hate Avengers, Devotion, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture/Recovery, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:05:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking Clint on a road-trip to give him distance from trauma was Psych's idea; now Phil and Steve have to help bring Clint back from the edge before he falls off. Clint never makes anything easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So I’m playing around with a trope here, messing with style and structure, so I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much to dysprositos for beta talents galore. Comments and concrit are appreciated. Also, this is part of my AU where Steve, Phil, and Clint are in a relationship together. "The Last Time You Slept" explains how it happened, but if you'll accept these three as an awesome threesome, you don't have to read that story to get this one.

The bikers ride on a classic 1974 Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle with purple accents and shining chrome, and their helmets match, black helmets with an arched ‘A’ on the side. They are both in jeans and leather jackets, one in brown and one in black, and the man in black is riding passenger, his arms wrapped around his companion’s waist and his head often braced against the other man’s back. They’re riding on an old two-lane highway as a midnight blue 1968 Corvette Stingray follows a few lengths behind them, as if it’s following them.

It is.

The vehicles are shiny, restored, and purring down the road under the open blue sky. They don’t speed, and whenever the road is free of traffic, the cycle will slow, letting the car slide up beside it. They only cover about two hundred miles in one day because they take it slow and stop at any and every roadside view spot, pulling off their helmets, sharing water and fruit from the cooler in the car. The driver of the car and the taller man driving the bike ease the man in the black jacket off of the bike gingerly each time, letting him lean on them as they soak in the views of the Catskill mountain range as they progress up the road. It’s dusk when the cycle leads the way into a hotel parking lot in Binghamton, New York.

_“Psych wants him out of the city for a few days at least, Phil. Get his mind off of what happened.” Fury is standing behind his desk, arms crossed tightly across his chest and his face caught between sternness and worry._

_“Did medical sign off, too?” Phil asked, standing as well but leaning heavily with both hands on the back of the chair in front of the desk._

_“They want to talk to you before you go, but yes, they signed off. Conditionally.”_

_Phil stood straighter and sighed. “Okay. I’m taking Rogers, too, though. He’ll be on stand-by if you need him, but I want him to come.”_

_Fury nodded. “I hope you guys can help, you know. I don’t want this to wreck him. After what happened last year, and now this…” He reached down and passed Phil two files. “One’s from Psych and one’s from Medical. They’ll both meet with you before you leave.”_

_“Yeah. Okay. I’ll stay in touch when I can, right?” Phil asked._

_“When you can? You gonna take him off the grid?”_

_“Maybe. We’ll see what he’s up for. Might not be reasonable, but maybe just for a bit if we can.”_

_“Okay. Stark can get to you even if you’re off grid, so don’t worry about checking in.” Fury stepped around his desk to Phil and reached his hand out. Phil shook it. “I’m sorry for how this went down, Phil,” Fury said._

_Phil  shrugged. “He’s worked with Sitwell before. The op just went to hell. Sometimes that happens, right?” He hoped to hell that’s all it was. Random. One piece of minutiae that triggered hell – sometimes even the best handler can’t stop a piece of minutiae._

_“Right,” Fury said, and he stepped back around behind his desk and sat down. “See you next week sometime. Use your discretion on the time frame.”_

_Phil nodded. “Thank you.” And that’s all that needed to be said, so he left. After he shut the door to Fury’s office, he leaned against the wall with his hands pressed against it and dropped his head to his chest, taking several deep breaths to calm himself before straightening his suit and heading down to Medical._

Steve shuts the door to the hotel room gently behind him and watches as Clint shrugs his jacket off and tries to hide a wince of pain as he clearly pulls his stomach wrong. Clint readjusts and manages to pull his jacket off and hang it up. Phil is getting some supplies at the nearby grocery store, so it’s just Steve and Clint for a few minutes. Steve wanders over and hangs his own coat up and moves to Clint’s side. He’s just standing in the middle of the room, looking lost. Steve leans into him, though not wrapping him up in his arms like he wants to; he just leans into his arm, touching their t-shirts together.

“You okay?” He asks, unsure of what he’s asking about, when he stops to think about it.

Clint looks over at him, his eyes tired. “Sure,” He says, his voice flat. He pauses and turns to one of the beds. “Felt real good to be outside today. I haven’t been outside that long when I wasn’t on an op in months.” He sighs and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Tired, though.” He toes off his shoes and scoots back on the bed. Steve reaches over and offers a hand to help him lay down – he knows any action requiring Clint’s stomach muscles right now is bad news – and Clint accepts it with clenched eyes and a breathy “thanks.”

Steve watches as Clint just closes his eyes and is surprised when Clint falls asleep a minute later. Settling himself down in a chair nearby to wait for Phil, he gazes at his lover. He still looks bad. There are dark circles under his eyes despite two weeks in medical, resting. His cheeks are too hollowed; he looks gaunt. Steve tries to recall how many pounds medical said he’d lost but he can’t remember. Too many. There are still marks on his face, finally starting to fade but still visible, and Steve’s eyes travel to Clint’s wrists, where bandages still cover the wounds that haven’t yet healed.

It’s in Clint’s eyes, though, that Steve sees the most trouble, and he’s quietly grateful that Clint’s got them closed, because every time Clint sleeps these days Steve hopes a little more light might be there when he wakes up.

 He remembers that weary, faded look in Bucky’s eyes when he finally got back to camp after Steve rescued him, after the hoopla and reports to the Colonel. Bad things had been done to him, and he’d watched comrades die. The fire didn’t return to his best friend’s eyes quickly, and Steve knows that bike rides are a good place to start, but the fire might take a while to come back to Clint as well. You don’t see those kinds of things and just come back into the world easily. It would take coaxing.

Steve glances up as the door opens and Phil enters, taking his hooded jacket off and hanging it up. He glances at Clint, asleep on the bed, and sets two bags of groceries on the small counter above the mini fridge.

“He fell asleep fast. Is he okay?” Phil asks.

“Just tired for now,” Steve says, and then after a pause, “I think.”

Phil nods and leans over Steve, brushing his lips in a soft kiss. Steve closes his eyes and savors the contact, reaching for Phil’s hands and pulling them close to his chest. He needs a little grounding after a day of what felt like running as far and as fast away from the city as they could.

Phil pulls back and looks at him, concerned. “Are _you_ okay?”

Steve nods and stands up, moving to Clint’s side along with Phil. “Worried. As usual,” he says with a grin.

“It’s what you do,” Phil teases.

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen anyone that far gone,” Steve said softly, pulling a blanket up over Clint’s prone form and then sinking back into one of the chairs nearby. “I didn’t think we’d get this far when we found him.”

“Neither did I,” Phil says as he moves to the other bed and sits down, pulling off his shoes and stretching out on top of the covers. “We can’t let him sleep too long right now, but I think an hour will be okay. That’ll put us on the tail end of his medicine’s time range.”

“You going to sleep a bit?” Steve asks as he digs through his pack for his sketchbook and pencils. He needs this kind of grounding, too.

“Yeah, can you wake me just in about twenty minutes? I just need a power nap before dinner. Then we’ll get him up and go find a place to eat.”

“Sure,” Steve says, and settles into the chair with his drawings. Soon Phil is snoring softly and Steve smiles at the old military in him that knows how to fall asleep practically on command. He’s often grateful for the military elements of Phil’s existence. He needs that kind of perspective more often than he acknowledges.

For now, he draws, letting his pencils drift across the page, and soon a small portrait of Clint appears, but Steve gets stuck when he gets to the mouth. After looking over and watching Clint sleep, he decides to be honest with himself and draws some more, letting the straight line of the mouth appear and adding shadows to the eyes. He stares at the drawing when he’s finished, and adds the date at the bottom of the page. This is Clint today.

After checking his watch, he packs up his pencils and book and goes to Phil’s bed, stretching out beside him and gently leaning over and running his fingers through Phil’s sandy hair, saying, “Hey, you should get up, okay?” He hates waking either of them, as sleep is a precious commodity right now in their world, but he knows he can’t wake Clint on his own, not yet.

Phil rolls into Steve’s arms and presses his face into the crook of Steve’s neck. “That was fast,” he mumbles, yawning, and then as he makes Steve’s chest into a pillow, he promptly falls back asleep. Steve watches him sleep for a minute and thinks ‘maybe this time it’ll be okay.’ He knows Phil needs rest, too; none of them have managed to get back onto a regular schedule since the incident. So he pulls himself away from Phil and stands, moving to the suitcase nearby. If he can wake Clint up and give him his medicine, Phil could get another hour or so before the prudent time to get dinner really passed.

So Steve rummages through the bag, finding the clear plastic bag holding three pill bottles and pulling one out. He runs a glass of water and sets the pills and the water on the bed stand. He takes a deep breath and moves to Clint’s side, careful not to touch him. He leans over and speaks firmly into Clint’s ear. “Clint. Can you wake up? Clint, wake up. You’re safe. You’re in a hotel with me and Phil, okay? Please wake up.”

He watches as Clint stirs, and suddenly Clint opens his eyes with a gasp, his eyes wild in fear. Steve makes sure he’s in his line of sight and speaks again. “Clint, you’re safe. You’re in a hotel. You’re safe.” Clint looks at him and takes a few heaving breaths.  He sits up quickly, looking around the room.

“Phil?” he says, looking at Phil, who had curled up around one of the pillows on his bed.

Steve quickly says, “He’s fine, Clint. He’s okay. He’s just sleeping, all right?” and he kneels down in front of Clint, putting his hands on his knees just like he’d watched Phil do the last week or so. Clint flinches and then looks at Steve, finally finding his eyes and nodding.

“Okay,” he says, his breath coming normally now. “Okay. He needs to sleep.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too.” Steve says with a grin, feeling like things might be progressing. He moves to sit on the bed next to Clint. “You need to take your medicine, though, to stay on schedule.” He feels Clint go rigid at his words.

“No,” Clint says, darkly.

“Yes, two more days. Remember? Just two more days,” Steve says.

“No.”

Steve reaches for the bottle and shows him. “Yes, Clint, look. Here’s the date. You have a couple days left.”

Clint stands from the bed without looking, crosses his hands over his chest and turns his back to Steve. He says, “No. I’m not taking them.” He sounds like a petulant child.

“Please, Clint. Just take them. Trust me,” Steve says, as Phil begins to stir on the bed behind them.

“No, goddam it! Clint shouts, and he reaches up and pulls on his hair as he limps to the window, breathing through clenched teeth. Phil sits up with a start, climbing quickly to his feet.

“What’s going on?” he asks Steve, panicked.

Steve looks at Phil apologetically. “I thought he might take them from me this time and I could let you sleep, Phil.” He hands him the bottle, and Phil just nods and moves quickly to Clint’s side. Steve watches as he holds the bottle out to Clint and says, gently, “Will you take them from me? Steve’s right about you needing them.” Phil reaches out with his other arm and gently rubs Clint’s back, right in the middle, and Clint visibly relaxes, turning away from the window and looking furtively over at Steve and then back at Phil. He looks down at the pill bottle and clenches his eyes shut. “I don’t want them, Phil, please.”

“I know,” Phil says. “But you’re still healing, and you need them. Just a little longer, okay?”

Clint stares at the floor for a few moments and then nods, and Phil steps closer and gives him two pills and the glass of water. Clint’s hands shake as he puts the pills in his mouth and takes a drink.

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to dysprositos for being such a fantastic beta. Also, thanks for the comments and subscriptions…I hope you understand how visible support helps me to have the confidence to keep posting this crazy stuff. I hope you enjoy this installment! Next one will be up soon!

Clint takes the damned pills. He swallows and feels Phil’s hand on his back assuring him that they’re safe, that he’s safe, that it’s a safe place for this. He has trouble meeting Steve’s eyes afterward, unable to rationalize why pills in Steve’s hand scream ‘danger’ while pills in Phil’s hand are just unwanted.

He really doesn’t want them. They make him itchy and antsy. The doctors said they would  help get him off the shit his captors forced on him, but really, they’re just pills being handed to him. That alone turns him into a shaky, uncontrolled mess right now, and he really doesn’t see an end to that.

But he takes them and waits as his body adjusts.  Finally, he sits back down on the edge of the bed and accepts the ice water Steve brings him. He lets Steve sit next to him and apologize, and he just nods and shrugs and whispers “I’m sorry, too,” counting on Steve’s super soldier hearing to catch what he can’t make loud.

They all wait a few minutes for some normalcy to return.  Phil is the one who finally calls it and says, “Dinner. Come on.”

Dinner is at a chain pub-style restaurant where Clint orders a cheeseburger and makes it through the whole thing in about ten minutes as Phil looks on in wonder.  Clint  counts it as a victory that it doesn’t taste like ash and that it doesn’t make him nauseous.

“Glad the doctors told you to go to town on the food?” Phil asks lightly.

Clint looks up from his Coke and shrugs. “They said increased appetite was a side effect.” Amphetamine withdrawal.  God, being hopped up on speed for three weeks made him fucking crazy. He still felt like that shit was boiling his blood. Aside from being strapped to a chair for three weeks and being jumpy as hell, there was the fact that it made everything Technicolor and loud. Now he was tired and hungry all the time and heavy, so heavy.

He suspects that if he hadn’t been on the drugs during his captivity, then maybe he would have blocked some of this shit out. No such luck. Now, he just wants to sleep and eat and forget and decide if the two men in front of him are strong enough to carry his weight.

 “You’re making me feel better,” Steve says with a grin. “I’m thinking of ordering a second burger. Want to join me?”

“Nah, that might be a bit much,” Clint replies, and takes another drink. “Tastes good, though,” Clint adds to please them. He knows what they need to hear, and while he just doesn’t have the energy to give it to them all the time, he tries. He sees the light in Steve’s eyes as he gives him a scrap of feeling. Giving even that feels like heaving a cinder block down the street, though, and whenever he talks to them it seems like he’s shouting to the opposite end of a very long hallway.  

“So I was thinking,” Phil says, and pulls a flyer out of his coat pocket, “This place looks like a good spot.”

Clint and Steve both lean over and Steve gives a low whistle. Clint looks at a photo of a log cabin tucked against the side of a mountain that is covered in fall leaves and he tries to feel something (it _is_ beautiful). There’s nothing there, though, and no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, he can’t deny that he’s apart from them.  He can’t get through the tunnel in his eyes, can’t get close to them. They’re too far away from him and he doesn’t have the energy to move closer.

Steve says, “Looks like a good place to spend a few days.”

“Where is it?” Clint asks, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. It looks vulnerable. Exposed.

“About two hours north of here,” Phil says. “It’s safe, Clint. I had Tony and Jarvis check it out – Tony even flew up last night and did a recon survey. The people who own it check out and the area is really remote, but easy to get in and out of. It’ll work. It’s got a hot tub and acres of private trails and a fireplace. You’ll like it.”

Clint looks intently at Phil for a few moments. He can see the hope in Phil’s eyes, and even though he’s grateful for the thought and Tony’s security check – well, fuck. He wants to fight it. He wants to say, ‘Let’s just ride. Please can we just keep riding?’ but he doesn’t. Fighting sounds too hard at the moment, so instead he says, “Okay. Okay we can try it. The woods sound like a good idea.”  

But it doesn’t sound very good, really. He pauses and adds, “It’s probably quiet there.”  Which they think is a good thing but Clint knows might be his downfall. He really wants the hum of the road under the bike tires – it drowned things out of his head today, and he felt lighter while they were on the bike than he had in weeks.

_He could hear the beeps of the monitors. He could hear when people entered the room and spoke to Steve or Phil and asked how he was doing and how they answered ‘He’s stable,’ and he wanted to laugh every time he heard that term applied to him. He didn’t have the energy for laughter, though._

_He had pain in his knee – though the surgery went as planned – and his wrists burned constantly, a dull searing pain that he told no one about. He didn’t tell them anything. Wouldn’t tell them anything.  Couldn’t? Maybe. But he had pain in his knee and they were picking him up for PT every morning and he kept his head down and did what they asked._

_He graduated to crutches, and Steve made him get out of bed every few hours and stagger down the hallway, keeping his head down and trying not to snap at the stupid questions aimed his way. Everything sounded pointless and loud to him right now, so he just kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to talk to any of them._

_Steve, goddamned persistent-as-fuck Steve, sat by his bed whenever he could, and when Clint was awake Steve read the sports page to him, asked him questions, and generally did enough talking for both of them. It was nerves—which Clint knew—and he didn’t blame Steve. He’d feel bad about wishing Steve away if he could manage it, but feeling bad was too close to guilt and pain and fear, so he clamped down on any feeling he had and wished they’d leave him alone anyway._

_The days went on and then Steve left for an Avengers mission and Clint missed him when he wasn’t there._

_Phil sat with Clint a lot, too, and for some reason that felt different. He woke up to Phil when they brought him out of sedation, and Phil was safety, assurance. No one would get to him if Phil were there. He remembered when he and Steve first found each other; it was through talking, through reassurances, through loss that they shared. Clint looked at Steve and felt loss. Worse, he saw the leader of the Avengers. Every time he thought of them he teetered on the edge of a cliff, and that was exhausting._

_He looked at Phil and saw safety, but even safety wasn’t enough._

_He knew they wondered why he wasn’t talking. He knew that Tony stopped visiting as much because he couldn’t handle the silence, and even Bruce, who was content to sit and read while Clint rested, began to leave the visiting to Natasha and Phil and Steve as it became evident that Clint was not going to engage him at all._

_He couldn’t explain how he needed the silence, how giving one word answers to Psych once a day made him feel like he’d been standing in the middle of a tornado for two hours.  How it  tore all of his energy away, leaving him stumbling through his own mind  like a drunkard. He couldn’t explain how his senses were different, how his blood was churning, how every time he looked at the door he expected the ghosts of the dead agents to sweep into the room and torment him to pieces, so he just kept his eyes closed, kept his mouth shut against noise, kept his mind focused on apologizing to the spirits every second he could.  It didn’t leave any time for small talk with his friends._

_“They want Steve and I to take you out of town for a few days,” Phil said one day, stirring Clint out of his remorse.  “They think a change of scenery will do you good. Medical says your PT is good and your diet is ready to go back to normal, and that with a little caution and help from me and Steve you can be on your own. Psych thinks some distance will help.”_

_Clint knew Phil well enough that he knew Phil was working hard to keep his voice even, to keep hope out of it for Clint’s sake. Clint figured the ghosts would find him no matter where he was, but he would be lying if he didn’t say he was sick of this place after two weeks. They wouldn’t let him eat anything outside of his diet plan and it was too goddamned noisy here. All he really wanted was somewhere he could puzzle out the weight upon his chest and drown the crazy noise inside his head._

_Phil suggested a road trip. Clint shrugged and nodded._

The three of them finish their dinner and make their way back to the hotel. Clint feels tired again; a day using his stomach muscles to hold him upright on the bike and his first day out of medical since the incident combine with the food to make him heavy again. He sits down on the edge of the bed and pulls his boots off, and he wordlessly shuffles to the bathroom and washes his face and gets ready for bed.

He should try and stay up, should try and talk to Steve and Phil. He knows they’re ready, eager, _dying_ to help him through this if he could talk to them. But he’s too heavy, and they’re too far down the tunnel. So he pulls a book from his suitcase and tries to read instead, thinking that maybe an escape of sorts is better than no escape at all.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read and those who commented on the last chapter! I love comments so much. This chapter was tough, but hopefully the structure of the story is becoming clear to you all, and I hope you’re still enjoying it! Thanks again to dysprositos for beta genius AND filling in much of the medical jargon. I am grateful.

The evening goes as well as Phil can hope for after the problem with the medication. He’s happy that Steve was able to wake Clint up without a full-on panic attack, really; it feels like progress. Progress with the medication, too, might have been too much to hope for in one night. Now they’ve had a quiet dinner, Phil and Steve filling most of the silence. Clint hesitantly agreed to the cabin. Now it’s almost eleven and Clint has settled down on the bed with a book, Steve is drawing again, and Phil is sifting through a file from the stack he didn’t feel like he could leave behind. There’s a file in the stack that he hopes to look at in more detail soon, but tonight he can’t bring himself to do it.

Tonight he’s looking at a file from one of Sitwell’s other ops, something safe, distant from him and Clint and Steve. He thinks back to getting briefed by medical – give him his pills on schedule, don’t expect too much from him physically, watch for signs of anxiety and temperament problems so we can stay on top of withdrawal issues. Psych had also briefed him, for a much longer time; they seemed eager to have Clint get some physical distance from the events but had trepidations about possible setbacks without a counselor around. Phil told them that he’d seen a lot in his career and he knew when to call for help. Besides, he wasn’t blind. He could see how careful he’d have to be with Clint after all of this.

_Phil sat in the waiting room with his head in his hands, staring at the floor. It had been three hours since they found Clint and Agent Shaw, two hours since they’d found the bodies of the other agents and several unidentified victims, and one hour since Fury had sent Phil over here to the hospital to wait, telling him he’d send updates as they came in. Now he was still waiting, trying to get the image of Clint beaten, strapped to that chair with empty eyes out of his head. It wasn’t working._

_“Agent Coulson?”_

_Phil looked up to see Dr. Weston standing in the doorway, beckoning. He took a deep breath, looked over at Steve and Natasha, who had joined him an hour ago, and then walked over, trying unsuccessfully to straighten his disheveled suit. He approached Dr. Weston, and the doctor unexpectedly stopped him before they could head to the recovery area._

_“Agent Coulson, you’re listed on Agent Barton’s forms as his emergency contact and next-of-kin, but I’d like to also speak to anyone you think will be directly involved in Agent Barton’s recovery process, if you’re comfortable with that.”_

_Phil felt like a small knife began pressing into his chest, and he nodded and went to get Steve and Natasha. They were all seated in Weston’s office a few minutes later._

_“All right,” Weston began carefully. “We’ve got Agent Barton under sedation for the moment. We wanted to gather as much information as possible, and I think we’re at the point now where it’s up to him to provide the rest. So.” He took a deep breath and Phil stole a glance at Steve; he was wringing his hands together so hard they were turning white. Weston went on. “We’ll start with what we know physically. We’re looking at dehydration and major malnourishment, and the electrolyte imbalance and vitamin deficiencies are going to take a while to correct.  He’s dropped twenty pounds in the three weeks he’s been gone – that’s telling me they were probably giving him food every couple days at the most, and dehydration has played a big part in that weight loss.”_

_Twenty pounds in three weeks. The knife in Phil’s chest dug deeper._

_“His right knee has ligament damage that’s going to need surgery. Bruising on the ribcage that suggests multiple beatings, and there’s an injury to his abdominal muscles that is going to give him trouble for a while. His wrists –“ Weston paused and looked down at the floor for a moment. “The skin there was so damaged that I want to do a couple of skin grafts to try and repair it, and his mouth…from what I can tell, they kept him bound and gagged the whole goddamned time. His mouth will heal up on its own, but he may want some cosmetic surgery there later if it bothers him. His cheeks were lacerated almost all the way through.”_

_Weston paused and looked up at Phil and the others and his eyes were stormy._

_Phil met the doctor’s gaze and tried to keep his voice even. “And that’s just physical damage.”_

_“There’s one more thing, Phil,” Dr. Weston said quietly, and Phil was suddenly glad of the years of working with Weston. “His blood showed traces of several different drugs, including one that’s a high-potency amphetamine. We think he’s been dosed very regularly since his capture. We’re going to have to do a little bit of work with withdrawal.”_

_“Why would they give him an amphetamine?” Phil asked._

_“To work him up. Keep him focused on what they want. Get him on edge, over the edge. Give high doses of amphetamine to someone who can’t move or talk? That would drive them crazy.”_

_“Crazy,” Phil repeated flatly. “Was he dosed enough to affect him mentally?”_

_Weston shook his head. “That’s something we still have to determine, but I don’t think he was in captivity long enough for that to be the case. We’ll have to wait and see. Look, Phil. It was torture, and the thing is. . . going by what was going on when you found him  and the discovery of the other victims…”_

_“What?” Natasha said impatiently, her eyes dark._

_He looked at her. “It’s forensics’ theory that Barton was treated differently than the others. He was the only one bound like this, and his drawn-out physical state is much worse than Agent Shaw’s or any of the victims, aside from the obvious. We haven’t been able to talk to Agent Shaw yet, but the evidence suggests that Barton has been in that same room the whole time, but they know that Shaw was moved at some point and they did find a room where Shaw and the others were probably kept. There’s no indication that Barton was ever moved.”_

_Phil closed his eyes slowly and dropped his head to his chest for a minute, trying to force the feeling of the dagger in his chest out. Clint was treated differently, worse. There was only one explanation he could think of, other than Clint being mouthy and pissing them off, but that seemed too easy. No, they’d known something about him and that was all there was to know. “They knew he was an Avenger,” Phil said, quietly._

_Natasha nodded. “This is going to be bad.”_

_“You’re going to have to be careful,” Dr. Weston said. “Psych wants to talk with him as soon as they can, and the short version is that this could be a very rough road.” He stood up. “I’d like to bring him out of sedation, though, now that we have our information. I think for now, Agent Coulson should go in alone.”_

_“No,” Phil said, standing as well. “I want all of us in there.” Steve and Natasha nodded gratefully and they all followed Weston into Clint’s room._

_Phil was thankful that Clint was cleaned up (the image of when they found him was going to be stuck with him forever), but he still looked. . . god, he looked so small, lying there. The weight loss was clear, and Clint’s face was pinched, pale, and so gaunt. The bandages around his mouth didn’t hide all of the red that stretched in a line around from each bandage back to his ear. His right eye was blackened from a recent hit and was yellowing already. He had an oxygen line under his nose, and his hands were tucked against the edge of the bed, both wrists bandaged heavily._

_Phil really just wanted them to let Clint sleep. He desperately wanted to keep him under and away from the aftermath. He had a child-like feeling that if they just let Clint sleep long enough maybe all of this would just go away._

_After a few minutes, though, Clint was showing signs of waking. Phil knew enough about torture aftermath to know not to touch him and he held his breath as Clint’s eyes fluttered open.  Phil watched as Clint looked at him for a moment, and he felt that dagger twist in his chest again as no emotion registered at all in his partner’s eyes. Clint lazily looked to the doorway and then to the window and Phil knew he was checking exits. He flicked his gaze across Steve and Natasha but didn’t respond to their presence, and then he lifted his right arm and looked at the bandages on his wrist for a moment before setting it down again. He looked over at Phil and then just looked away._

_Natasha and Steve seemed to be just waiting to see what happened._

_Phil poured a glass of water and slipped in a straw before holding it out. “Do you want a drink?”_

_Clint nodded and Natasha leaned over and used the bed controls to lean him upwards a bit. He looked at her for a moment, and then back to the water glass. Phil held it out and Clint took a long drink, wincing a bit with each swallow._

_“Does it hurt to drink, Clint?” Phil asked._

_Clint nodded but stayed silent. He leaned back against his pillow, shutting his eyes, and Phil’s level of worry increased tenfold._

_“Clint, talk to me, okay? Just look at me and tell me what you need,” Phil asked, and Clint opened his eyes and stared at Phil blankly._

_Dr. Weston approached from the back of the room where he’d been checking the monitors. “Agent Barton,” he said with his deep, unfamiliar voice before he was fully in Clint’s view. Just as Phil realized the doctor’s mistake, Clint started, jerking with his whole body. His eyes flew open and he took a deep breath as fear overtook his face and he tried to scramble away, pulling bandages and causing the monitors to go crazy. Phil leaned over,putting his hands on both bedrails, framing Clint but still not touching him, making sure Clint could see him clearly. “Clint, you’re safe. Clint, that’s Dr. Weston. You’re safe, look at me. Clint, look at me,” he said as calmly as he could as Clint twisted, trying to get away. Finally, Clint found Phil’s eyes and stopped moving, still taking heaving breaths, and clearly in pain._

_He watched as Clint’s fear-filled eyes dulled again, as if someone were flipping the light switch off in a room. Dr. Weston kept his distance from the bed now, and positioned himself directly in Clint’s line of sight. Just as he started to speak again, Natasha reached over and moved him half a foot to the left and nodded at the doorway. “Keep his sight lines open,” she said simply, and the doctor nodded._

_“Agent Barton,” he said, a little more subdued this time, “I’m sorry for startling you.”_

_Clint just stared, and Phil watched his face intently, completely ignoring Dr. Weston._

_Weston went on. “I know you’re tired, and I want you to rest, but I need to talk to you for a moment about surgery. We’d like to operate on your knee and on your wrists as soon as possible. You’ve got torn ligaments in your knee and your wrists both have places that need grafts. The sooner we do this, the sooner you can get out of Medical, which I know is always a high priority with you,” he said with a smile. Clint didn’t return it, so Weston added, “Unless you have any objections, we’ll do them both under the same sedation.”_

_Clint still didn’t respond; he just shifted his gaze to the window of the room, so Phil nodded. “That sounds like a good plan.”_

_Dr. Weston paused for a moment and then stepped forward just a bit. Clint’s gaze returned to him. “Agent Barton, you’ve been through severe trauma. Do you understand what I’m saying about surgery? If we get this taken care of, then the physical injuries won’t hold you back very much. Do you understand?”_

_Clint looked at him and then briefly at Phil, and then he just nodded, ‘yes.’_

_Weston turned to Phil and said, “I’d like to see you in my office in a few minutes, Agent. Please.”_

_“Right,” Phil replied as Weston left the room._

_Steve and Natasha moved closer, and Natasha sat on the bed next to Clint, who hardly seemed to notice._

_Steve leaned into Phil, who gently picked up Clint’s hand from the bed.  Clint eyed the water again and Natasha helped him drink._

_Steve looked at Clint with narrowed eyes and Phil knew he was holding back, but he finally said, “Clint, please talk to us.”_

_Clint leaned back from the cup Natasha was holding and looked at each of them. He held Steve’s gaze for a long moment before closing his eyes. He was asleep a moment later and Natasha sat with him while Steve and Phil went to Dr. Weston’s office and had a long talk with Dr. Weston and Dr. Fleschner from Psych._

_It was three days before Clint spoke, and even then it was only to ask for water and to tell Phil that he was really, really tired. That was all they could get out of him, basic physical statements, until two weeks later when he agreed to go on the trip with a shrug of his shoulders and nod of his head._

Phil sits at the table and watches Steve draw while Clint reads, and he knows that the drawing is probably one of tension and fear manifesting.  He’s a little worried about Steve, really, because he knows that Steve sees Clint as the person who can save him, who has saved him thus far. To lose that would be devastating for the soldier. Clint turned to Steve for help in the aftermath of Loki, which was the aftermath of Steve’s resurrection from the ice, which was the aftermath of his loss of Bucky Barnes and Peggy Carter as well. Phil _knows_ Steve and Clint saved each other, and he’ll be eternally in their debt for that. Now, though, everyone was guessing at how to best save Clint, and neither Phil nor Steve liked guesswork.

He sighs and shoves the paperwork aside as he stands. “Do either of you want a drink before we sleep?” he asks, and Clint doesn’t seem to hear him. This has been disconcerting to Phil, Clint’s zoning out, the blank spaces where he goes missing again.

Steve says “Sure, thanks,” and looks over at Clint and then up at Phil, who shrugs and moves to run some water in a couple of mugs and digs teabags out of the grocery bag on the counter before he turns to the microwave to heat the water. Steve calls out to Clint again, but gets no response.

“They tested his hearing, didn’t they?” Steve asks Phil as he comes over to collect his tea and Clint keeps reading.

“Yes. It tested fine.” Phil pauses. “Did you know he lost his hearing for a pretty good while about ten years ago?”

“No, he never mentioned that. How?” Steve asks, swirling a spoon around his cup.

“Explosion. During a messy op for the FBI. His hearing came back about a year later. We thought it would be permanent, at first.”

“Was he scared?”

“Yes. We all were. But you know him. He rolls with it after the initial shock.”

“Usually.” Steve says, and then, after a pause, “Why do you think he’s doing this now?”

“Zoning out?” Phil says. Steve nods. “Maybe it’s just a really good book,” Phil says with a grin.

“It’s not,” Clint says from the bed, and Phil and Steve share a glance before looking over at him. He puts his book on the bedside table before pulling covers up around his chin. As he turns away from them and nestles himself some more, he murmurs, “They did _all_ their shit in that room. I didn’t want to listen to them every damned minute.”

Phil and Steve drink their tea and watch as Clint falls asleep, and Phil is grateful for even that tidbit of information. He lies with Steve’s arms wrapped tightly around him in their bed and he sleeps a little sounder than before … until the nightmares arrive for the evening.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Real Life. Anyway, thanks to dysprositos for a pretty major overhaul of this chapter that made it lots better. Hopefully not as long between this and the next chapter. Thanks for all the support and encouragement.

Phil wakes to the sound of Clint mumbling. Phil stretches and notices that Steve is gone from the rumpled bed, and when he looks around, he only sees Clint. He is sitting in one of the bland maroon chairs across the room from the beds and he has his arms wrapped around his waist. His head is down on his chest and he is rocking slightly. He is still dressed in his sweat pants and grey t-shirt and his hair is tousled from sleep. Phil isn’t sure where Steve is, though he knows he isn’t in the room.

Phil says Clint’s name, but gets no response, so he climbs out of bed and approaches him slowly. He hears him muttering, ‘Safe, he’s safe, he’s safe…I’m sorry…he’s safe…”

He kneels down in front of Clint and speaks again. “Clint.” The muttering stops but he doesn’t look up. “Clint, look at me for a second, okay?” Clint looks up at him with bleary eyes. “What’s wrong?” He asks, hoping he’ll respond, trying to swallow the panic rising in his own chest.

Clint pauses, clenches his eyes shut, and then opens them again and looks at Phil. “Steve went for a run.”

That’s not what Phil is expecting to hear, so he says, “What?”

Clint takes a shaky breath. “Steve went for a run.” He doesn’t let go of his stomach, but he nods toward the table nearby. Phil looks and there is a note on top. He stands and picks it up, seeing Clint clench his eyes shut again.

It’s a note from Steve, scrawled on hotel stationary, saying he went for a run and what time he left. Phil looks at his watch. Twenty-five minutes ago. He looks back at Clint, who is rocking back and forth again.

A wave of exhaustion washes over Phil. He was up twice during the night, talking Clint down from nightmares along with Steve. There’s a note here telling them exactly where Steve is and he can’t see what is going on to have Clint so upset. This was more emotion than he’s seen at all since they found him, though, so Phil knows it’s important.

“Clint, he went for a run twenty-five minutes ago. He’ll be back soon.” There is no response. “Clint, he’ll be back soon. He’s okay.”

Clint shudders and looks up again. “I know.” And he stands and starts pacing quietly across the room.

“Clint, what’s wrong?” Phil asks, loudly. He doesn’t know how else to handle this.

Clint stops abruptly and looks up. “Something might happen to him. He’s alone.”

Phil approaches him slowly, and puts his hands deliberately on both of his shoulders, ignoring the flinch. “He’s safe. He’ll be back soon.” Clint just shrugs and tries to pull away. Phil lets go and watches as he begins pacing again.

“Something might happen to him,” Clint repeats, and then, under his breath, “I’m sorry.”

“If something happens to him, we’ll go find him and help him,” Phil says firmly.

Clint stops and his blue eyes flash. “As quick as you found me?”

Phil can hear the sarcasm dripping from Clint’s lips and it takes him by surprise. Struck momentarily silent, he watches helplessly as Clint goes back to pacing.

_Three weeks. Twenty-one days, thirteen hours, and twenty-two minutes since Agent Johnston and his team missed their last check-in and disappeared. Johnston had requested Clint’s help due to the location of the mission – Clint was good backup in a jungle, where gunfire was way too noisy. But the team had gone silent, had disappeared, and no amount of looking could find them._

_Twenty-one days of searching, twenty-one days of fighting against panic every hour he was awake, twenty-one days of negotiating through panic with Steve, both of them trying to keep each other functional, to hold each other back from snapping at everyone who didn’t deserve it, to hold each other together. Hours spent at their dining room table with maps, reports, security footage playing on a loop on their TV, trying not to snap at each other, really, and trying to be productive while subtly tearing the world apart looking for Clint._

_Night after night of Steve finding him in his office poring over news footage or sleeping at his desk. Steve dragging him home and pouring him a stiff drink, helping him remember to eat, to shower, to sleep. Phil waking in the middle of the night with Clint’s name on his lips to find his bed empty and Steve down in the gym tearing through three, four punching bags every night, pulling him back to their room and together beginning on the maps, reports, footage again._

_Phil was at his office desk again when his door flew open at the three week mark. “We have a lead on them, Phil,” Fury says, storming into Phil’s office unannounced. “New Jersey, vacant warehouse. We’ve got a team assembling at the jet in ten minutes. Stark, Rogers, and Banner are meeting us there.”_

_Before Fury finished, Phil was up and pulling on his holster and suit coat. “Romanov?”_

_“She’s meeting us at the jet.” The flight to New Jersey was quick and quiet; Fury briefed everyone on the plane and then sat down next to Phil._

_“A possible terrorist cell in New Jersey?” Phil asked. “The mission was a government official in Peru. This doesn’t make sense.”_

_Fury nodded. “I know, but we have video footage from a paranoid civilian, and our scanners caught Shaw and Johnston on the tape. Blindfolded. Three weeks ago. It just surfaced on the guy’s crazy blog site.”_

_Phil knew that Agents Shaw and Johnston were on Clint’s team and he trusted those scanners implicitly. If they detected those agents on the crazy guy’s video footage from New Jersey, then they were there. It was just that it didn’t add up. He sat quietly, trying not to tap his foot too loudly against the floor, replaying those three weeks in his head._

_Thirty minutes later, they were on the ground._

_Phil had pulled on his field suit and Kevlar on the way there, and they all rode in the SHIELD sedans until they were about a quarter mile out from the building. Phil, Natasha, and Steve, along with the retrieval team, dropped into formation and headed toward the location. It was an old warehouse, and the front door was boarded up and several windows were broken. There were no cars on the perimeter, so whoever was doing this was either not using vehicles or not around at the moment. Banner and Stark had the perimeter covered. The specs of the place showed a large warehouse area and an office off to one side, so the team split into three groups and silently made their way into the warehouse from different angles._

_It was empty, but Phil ordered two teams to continue to sweep the warehouse, just in case. He took the other team, along with Natasha and Steve, toward the office. Just outside, Phil could hear a guy shouting, cussing, and then a gunshot. That was all he needed. The team stormed the office, knocking the door down on the way in, and in seconds had three guys with guns pinned to the ground. Phil looked around the office. There was a form slumped in an office chair and another man face down on the floor about five feet away. Natasha moved to the man on the ground and turned him over. It was Agent Shaw, a young undercover guy, and he was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the stomach. He was unconscious, blood also streaming from a head wound. One of the other agents rushed to Shaw and tried to staunch the gunshot wound while another agent called out to Fury for the med team._

_Phil turned to the form in the chair. The man was slumped forward, one of his arms restrained behind him, the other limp in his lap as if they’d been interrupted in restraining him. His chin was resting on his chest, and his feet were chained to the legs of the chair. His hair was dirty, parts of it matted with blood, and there was blood spattered down the front of his shirt and dried blood covered his pants. They could hear him breathing through his nose, a harsh, wet, labored, sound. It wasn’t until Phil’s eyes fell on the man’s boots—the same boots that he often tripped over in his own living quarters—that he realized it was Clint. Phil drew a sharp breath, and he and Natasha seemed to realize it at the same moment because she crossed the room to him faster than Phil could take a step. Steve tied Phil in his arrival and fell to his knees, immediately trying to undo Clint’s one hand behind the chair._

_Natasha had leaned over and was speaking low. “Clint, hey, it’s us. Clint.” She gingerly rested her hand on his shoulder but he didn’t respond. Phil reached over and put his hand under Clint’s chin and tilted his head up to see his face. He almost yanked his hand away. Clint was gagged, and the gag was soaked in blood; it was blood from that which was dripping onto Clint’s shirt. One eye was blackened, his left cheek was bruised; his face was filthy, streaked in dirt and blood and sweat, and his eyes were dull and unfocused._

_Clint drew a sharp breath of recognition when he saw them, but the gag and the blood in his mouth choked him. He shook as he coughed, unable to draw a breath through the wet fabric. Steve quit working on the hand restraint and frantically undid the gag, uncharacteristically swearing as he did so, and when he pulled it away Phil’s stomach turned. The fabric had been there so long that it had cut into Clint’s cheeks, creating a cartoonish bloody stripe from his mouth back to the corner of his jaw. Clint gasped and then leaned back in the chair, clearly too exhausted to do anything else._

_Steve finished undoing his arm, and Phil kept talking to him, telling him he was safe. Natasha ran her hand down Clint’s arm, trying to soothe both him and her. She talked quietly in Russian for a moment, but Phil realized that Clint wasn’t responding to her at all. As Steve went to work on getting Clint’s feet out of the restraints, Phil laid his hand gently against Clint’s cheek, careful of the laceration from the gag._

_“Clint, you’re safe now. The med team is coming and we’re going to get you out of here. You’re safe, okay?” he said, trying to get Clint to focus on him. But he couldn’t. Clint’s eyes were expressionless. He had the look of someone who had retreated far away from the chaos around them, and was reluctant to come back until they knew it was safe. Phil heard the med team coming up behind them, and as Steve undid the foot restraints and pulled Clint’s legs out from where they’d been tucked around the bottom of the swiveling office chair, Clint groaned and clenched his eyes shut. He took several pained breaths through his teeth and then his face went slack again._

_The med team moved to ease him to the ground so they could put him on the gurney, and Clint suddenly thrashed, trying to get his arms away from them, trying to curl in on himself. He didn’t make a sound. His eyes were still dull, he was silent, but he thrashed and pulled, and when Phil grabbed his wrists to hold him down and try to talk to him, Clint screamed. Phil looked down and realized his hands were wet with blood. He pulled his hands off of Clint’s wrists and saw that the wrists were raw, seeping wounds, the skin completely missing in spots. Nauseated, Phil moved his hands to Clint’s shoulders, and a medic plunged a sedative into Clint’s arm. Clint fell silent again, his eyes closed, and as his breathing evened out, the medics pushed Phil away, focusing in on Clint._

_Steve pulled Phil up by the elbow and steadied him, watching the medics take Clint away from them. “Oh my God, Phil,” Steve said, horrified. Phil nodded. They’d found him, but suddenly Phil was more afraid than ever._

“Clint,” Phil says, trying to regain some patience. “We tried to find you sooner. You know that. Steve is fine. He’s running like he does every morning.”

Clint glares at Phil and then steps around him, resuming his pacing, acting as if Phil had not spoken at all. Frustrated, Phil throws himself into one of the nearby chairs and watches Clint’s circuit through the room. As Clint paces the mumbling picks back up. Phil strains to hear him, and can make out the “I’m sorry” and the “he’s safe, let him be safe” repeated over and over.

After five minutes it’s driving Phil crazy and he can’t figure out what to do for Clint, to soothe this entirely unexpected anxiety. But he tries again anyway.

“Clint.” he says, his voice raised. Clint stops again and looks angrily at Phil, like he resents the interruption. “Hey, how about you go take a shower? He’ll probably be back by the time you’re finished.”

Clint just shakes his head and continues his route around the room.

“Clint, tell me this,” Phil says, as he realizes something. Clint looks over. “Steve left while you were in the hospital. You didn’t panic. What’s different now?”

Phil hears Clint take a shaky breath and sees him run his hand through his hair, but he doesn’t answer. Phil presses. “What’s different, Clint? Why are you panicking?”

Clint paces a few more rounds and then stops, looks at Phil, and says, quietly, “He had backup then. He’s alone here. We don’t know where he went for his run. I can’t go find him…he’s lost.” Clint’s voice drops to a whisper at the end. Phil’s anger and frustration dissipate in an instant and he stands up, crosses to Clint, and puts his hands on his shoulders again.

“Not for long, Clint. Really. He’ll be back soon. And if he’s not back in another thirty minutes, well, then we can worry. Okay?” Clint stares at him, but doesn’t say anything. “Really. Go take a shower, all right? Go take a shower, and if he’s not back when you’re finished then we’ll make a plan.”

Clint weaves his hands behind his head and wraps his elbows around his face for a moment in exasperation and then drops them down to his side and nods. “Fine. I’ll shower and then we’ll plan.”

Phil hears the water a few minutes later and finally relaxes when he’s certain that Clint is actually taking a shower. He makes himself a cup of coffee and sits down and tries to check the news and his inbox while he waits for Steve. A few minutes later, the door to the room clicks and Steve walks in, sweaty and gorgeous. Phil stands quickly, shaking his head. “Thank God you came back in a reasonable amount of time.”

Steve’s brow creases at the unconventional greeting. “Why? What’s wrong?” he asks as he pulls a towel from his bag and wipes his face.

“Clint’s been pacing and panicking for half an hour. He thought we were going to lose you.”

“What? I left a note. I just went for a run.”

“Tell that to him when he‘s finished. He’s coming out of there expecting to draft a rescue plan.”

Steve shakes his head twice, slowly, before stripping out of his running gear and into his shorts.

Phil watches him appreciatively; he’ll take small favors.

After a few minutes, the door from the bathroom opens and Clint comes out in his jeans with no shirt on. As soon as he sees Steve, he drops his head to his chest and draws a shuddering breath. Steve crosses to him and stands close, letting Clint take only what he needs. Clint leans into Steve’s chest, his arms still by his side.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Steve says gently, and he tentatively wraps his arms around Clint’s shoulders. Phil can see that Clint is trembling. Clint slowly wraps his arms around Steve’s waist, and they stand there, gripping each other tightly, for several moments. Phil closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, holding the image of his two lovers in his mind.

He opens his eyes when Steve says, “I won’t do it again.”

Clint nods into Steve’s chest and then slowly extracts himself from the embrace. He looks over at Phil and shrugs. “Maybe my perspective’s a little fucked up right now, huh?”

Phil grins, “We’ll keep it in mind.”

“Breakfast?” Steve asks quietly.

Clint nods and steps away, pulling on a sweatshirt and digging socks out of his bag.

They eat in the hotel and go back to their room to pack up and get back on the road. It’s when Phil pulls Clint’s medication out of the bag that he realizes, once again, that yes, Clint’s perspective is a little fucked up. Clint spots the bottle in Phil’s hand and narrows his eyes, stepping across the room and away.

“Clint,” Phil says, holding up the bottle. “Twice a day. You know that.”

Clint shakes his head. “But it’s almost gone. I don’t even get the shakes anymore. We can just quit. I want to quit, Phil.” His voice is shaking again and he’s got himself wrapped in his arms.

“We can’t quit. You have to finish it off. You have to, Clint.”

“Fuck you. No.” Clint’s voice goes dark.

Phil is surprised by the anger. Clint’s temper has been short lately, but he hasn’t taken it out on Phil very much. “You have to. We can’t go anywhere until you take it.” He hates talking to him like a child.

Steve steps over to Clint. “Come on. Just a few more doses.”

They are both caught by surprise when Clint shoves Steve backwards and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Shit.” Phil says, heading out after Clint. A public showdown is not what they need. This medicine stuff is driving Phil crazy. He wants, once again, to get five minutes with the bastards who did this.

Clint is walking briskly down the sidewalk, still clutching his own shoulders, his head ducked down. Steve catches up with him easily and Phil approaches a moment later.

“Clint, stop.” Phil says. Steve just walks beside him. Clint ignores them and keeps walking. Steve looks at Phil and Phil nods. They both step in front of Clint and force him to stop. “This isn’t going to help, Clint. Just take the medicine and we can get on the bike and go.”

Something in that sentence makes Clint jerk his head up to face Phil and Steve. His eyes are flashing and then he closes them and winces and Phil steps closer. “It makes me crazy, Phil. It’s no good.”

“Clint, is it the medicine itself that makes you crazy?” Phil asks, thinking back on all the times he’s given Clint the pills. Thinking back to the first time someone other than Phil tried to give them to him and how his eyes filled with fear, how even when Phil gave them to him now he shook uncontrollably, like the act of taking it was terrifying him.

Clint shrugs. Clearly, he’s never considered the intricacies of it, has always just reacted.

Phil has an idea. “Come on back to the hotel room, okay? Let’s not do this here.” He starts back, trusting that Clint and Steve will follow. A few minutes later the men stand together in the room. Phil sets the pill bottle down on the counter and runs a glass of water from the tap, setting it next to the bottle. He gestures to it. “You take them.”

Clint looks at him, puzzled. “What?”

Phil holds up his hands. “You don’t even like it when I give them to you, much less someone else. Maybe part of the driving you crazy bit is from taking them from someone else. Pick them up yourself, read the bottle, assure yourself they’re from SHIELD and safe, and then take them.” He sees Steve smile; Clint glares for a moment and then steps over to the counter. He stares at the bottle, picks it up with shaky hands, and pours two into his palm. He holds them clenched in his fist for a few moments and then picks up the glass of water. He slowly tucks the pills into his mouth, closes his eyes, and drinks.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the subscriptions and comments and encouragement, everyone. Thanks to dysprositos for. . . a hell of a lot. Especially ecology. Thank god someone is taking ecology. I hope you all enjoy this latest installment!

Steve feels the hum of the road beneath him as he sits on the vintage motorcycle that he loves. Tony designed it for Clint, but Steve loves the way it rides and he loves riding it with Clint. He can feel Clint’s arm wrapped around his waist tightly; he knows one hand is on the bike, but Clint is gripping him almost desperately, leaning into his back with his helmet. Steve feels each contact point intensely, and savors it like he’d savored their embrace earlier that morning. Clint hadn’t wanted any touch for the few weeks of recovery at SHIELD; if he will let Steve or Phil hold him now, then this is progress. Steve will savor the contact like the drink of water it is.

They’re riding north through the Hudson River Valley and the forest is bursting with color. Steve desperately wants to unpack the watercolor set he’d brought with him and sit on the edge of the road and paint, to bring the oranges, reds, greens, yellows into permanence on his page so that he could look back at it and remember this breathtaking beauty surrounding him. Clint is missing that, his body draped around Steve’s back, but that’s to be expected—his lingering injuries and medication exhaust him, to say nothing of the emotional rollercoaster they are all on at the moment.

They ride for a couple hours this time, without stopping, and Steve follows Phil off an exit ramp and onto a long, winding road. They turn off after about forty minutes, and weave their way through country roads, finally coming to a dirt road leading deep into the canopied woods. Steve feels Clint shift, sitting up and looking around, and if he’s coherent at all, then he’s looking around in awe. Steve feels his jaw actually drop at the beauty of the road and forest, and they climb the switchback driveway up a steep grade through  trees that arch over their heads. Finally, they come to the top of the rise. The cabin sits a few hundred feet from the dirt road, and there’s a parking area off to the right.

Steve pulls the bike in next to Phil’s car and shuts it off, pulling off his helmet, seeing Clint do the same. They both set their helmets on the bike and turn slowly in a circle, saying nothing. Phil climbs out of his car with a small smile on his face, his blue eyes shining.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” he says, leaning against the hood of the car.

“That’s an understatement,” Steve argues, stepping toward the cabin and reaching back for Clint’s hand without thinking about it. Clint looks at Steve’s hand for a second and then grasps it tentatively and shrugs.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this much red and orange in one spot in my life,” he says, walking with Steve toward the cabin.

“Wait,” Phil calls. “Don’t go inside yet. Go around back. That’s the real view.”

There’s a stone pathway that leads around the side of the cabin, so Steve ignores the gorgeous porch with the huge, white rocking chairs and follows the path around back, pulling Clint along with him. When they round the corner to the back of the cabin, Clint lets go of Steve’s hand and sucks in a sharp breath. Steve stops in his tracks and folds his arms over his chest, letting out a low whistle of appreciation.

“Wow,” he says in awe.

There is a grey stone patio to their left and it has a brick fire pit with red Adirondack chairs circling it and a huge silver grill behind it set against the back wall of the cabin. There are torches lining the patio and at the far edge is a Jacuzzi. The patio isn’t what caught Steve’s attention, though.

The grass beyond the patio goes for about ten feet, then the land slopes down an overlook. A sea of maple, birch, and spruce trees spills out in front of them. The crisp, blue sky holds wispy, white clouds and the clear air is filled with the smell of autumn leaves. Steve is entranced, his mind filling with drawings yet to be done, with anticipation of the night sky to come, and a feeling of peace filling his chest with every breath. He looks over at Clint, though, and isn’t sure what he’s seeing.

Clint walks to the edge of the overlook and sits down roughly in the grass. Steve watches as he pulls his knees up close to his chest and wraps his arms around them. Phil leans into Steve and they watch for a few minutes, waiting for something. Clint just sits, staring off across the canopy of trees, his chin resting on his knees. Steve watches him, seeing the jeans and black leather jacket contrast against the green grass and oranges and reds of the trees. He is incongruous, a still, silent dark shape curled up against a vibrant background.

After a few minutes, Phil nudges Steve toward Clint and says, “I’ll go unload the car. You guys enjoy the scenery,” and he disappears back around the front of the building.

Steve walks slowly to where Clint is sitting and settles down next to him, mirroring his pose. They sit in silence for a while, and then Steve unfolds a little. “Do you want a chair?” he asks gently. Clint doesn’t answer, so Steve sits with him for a while longer. Phil appears out of nowhere with a grey duffel bag that he sets down next to Steve and a cup of coffee that he hands wordlessly to Clint, who takes it with just a nod of thanks. Steve pulls Phil down in a soft kiss and whispers, “Thanks,” as Phil stands and nods, heading back into the cabin to putter some more.

Steve opens the bag and pulls out his sketchpad and the small box of pastels that he doesn’t use very often.  He begins drawing. He hears Clint take a sip of coffee and feels him unfurl and stretch his legs out in front of him, leaning on one arm. Steve just focuses on his drawing, feeling tension seep out through the chalky lines on his page.

_He didn’t draw anything during the three weeks Clint was missing._

_He’d been in a strategy meeting with Hill and Stark for three hours the day Clint and his team were declared missing. He emerged from the meeting to find Phil standing in the hallway, waiting for him, and he’d known immediately that something was wrong._

_“Johnston’s team missed another  check-in,” Phil said simply, and Steve, Hill and Stark stopped in their tracks._

_“So let’s go get ‘em,” Tony said quickly._

_Phil glared at him and then looked at Steve. “Debriefing in the conference room in ten. Agent Hill, can you gather the other Avengers and Agent Sitwell, please?” Hill nodded and left quickly. Steve, Tony and Phil made their way to the conference room and Steve watched silently as Phil set up the computer and organized his notes. He could see Phil’s clenched jaw and tight shoulders, but there was no panic in his eyes, just cold efficiency. The others filed in and took their places around the table. Phil pulled up a map._

_“This is the area where the team was inserted. The last sit rep we have from them was at 1100 hours yesterday and indicated that things were going according to plan. They were set to infiltrate the party that the target was attending and hadn’t run into any complications. However, the target was not taken out and no word of a disturbance at the party has been ascertained from any of our sources. It’s as if the team didn’t show.”_

_“So we go look for them, right?” Tony said, leaning over the table._

_“It’s not that easy,” Natasha replied, putting her hands on top of the table. “Something changed, right?” She asked, looking at Phil. “Something we didn’t see. We need to look again.”_

_Phil nodded. “I want you and Tony and Steve to do some basic reconnaissance in the area; Tony, I want you up high taking sensor readings and Captain, I need you and Agent Romanov to do some on-the-ground scouting in the vicinity of the insertion point and the party.”_

_“What about you?” Tony said to Phil._

_“Research,” he sighed. “Fury wants me to sift through the mission briefings and mission research to see if there’s something we missed.”_

_Steve nodded, and after sitting with Natasha and Tony for a while drafting a quick plan, he made his way to Phil’s office to fill him in. He keyed open the locked door using Phil’s code, which Phil had shared with him a couple of months before. He found Phil sitting on his green leather couch with a laptop and a file in his lap and a stack of files on the dark wood coffee table. He didn’t even look up as Steve came in and shut the door behind him._

_“We’re leaving in half an hour,” Steve said, sitting down next to Phil. Phil nodded, and sifted through the file. Steve sat quietly for a few minutes and then rose to leave with a sigh. “We’ll find him, Phil. Somehow, we’ll find him.”_

_Phil pulled him back down and wrapped him in an embrace. “Be careful,” he mumbled into Steve’s shirt. “Don’t want to lose you, too.”_

_Steve pulled back and looked at Phil earnestly. “You’ll find what they missed and we’ll find a trail. You’ll see.” He cupped Phil’s chin and kissed him, savoring the taste of coffee, feeling Phil’s trust,  feeling Phil relax a bit. They parted and Steve stood. “We’ll bring him back if he’s there,” he said._

_“I’ll figure out where he is if it’s not there,” Phil replied forcefully, and Steve nodded and left to join Tony and Natasha on the jet._

_The original mission had been overseen by Sitwell and had sent Johnston’s team plus Clint to Lima, Peru, where the objective was to confiscate a set of files from a threat and eliminate the threat afterward. Natasha and Steve left Tony to do his aerial surveillance and they headed first for the SHIELD safe house where the team went after insertion. As they suspected, there was nothing there. That meant the team hadn’t been surprised there or taken from there. They’d gotten farther than that._

_Next, Steve and Natasha meticulously scouted the neighborhoods surrounding the target’s base. It took them five days of surveillance and a few meetings with contacts SHIELD had in the city, but they determined that the team was not in the area, they determined that the target was definitely still alive, and they determined that the target was going about his business as if nothing had happened._

_Natasha got even quieter than usual after three days, and on day five, she  finally looked at Steve and admitted, “They’re not here.” So they headed out to their extraction point and were back at SHIELD headquarters that night explaining to Phil and Fury that there was no trace of the team in that city.  Phil admitted to everyone that his paper and electronic searching wasn’t yielding anything either, but that he had a lot of information to sift through; it could take a while to even get through everything. Fury dismissed them and told them to rest, scheduling another meeting for twelve hours in the future. He glared at Steve and, pointing at Phil, said, “Make. Him. Sleep. We have a whole analyst team working on this around the clock. He can bully them tomorrow after he sleeps and gets a decent meal.”_

_“Yes, sir,” Steve said. Fury left and Phil just put his head in his hands._

_Natasha looked at Steve and said, “I’ll take him and get him some dinner while you shower. I’ll drop him at your place in an hour, okay?” Phil looked up and arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to be no good to him if you get sick, Coulson. You know that,” she said._

_Steve grinned and left them to fight about food, and an hour later as promised, Natasha shoved Phil through the doorway to their apartment with a tired, “See you guys tomorrow.”_

_Steve closed the door behind her and when he turned around, Phil was loosening his tie and sinking down the foyer wall onto the tile floor despite the soft leather couch being less than ten feet away. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his head in his arms with a very loud groan. Steve knelt down next to him and gently ran his hands through Phil’s hair. “Come on. Come sleep and we’ll get back to it first thing tomorrow.”_

_Phil looked up at him with bleary eyes, and Steve saw the dark circles and pale skin and knew he hadn’t done anything except sleep at his desk off and on while they’d been gone. He pulled Phil up from the floor and wrapped his arm around him, guiding him down the hall to their bedroom with its king bed and soft green walls and pale yellow carpet. It was a sanctuary for all three of them, the one place computers and files were not permitted and where the rule was to get out of SHIELD garb immediately upon entering the room, even if that wasn’t until two minutes before falling asleep._

_So Steve guided Phil over to the bed and methodically began to strip his suit off of him. He had the lamps on and quiet music playing. He wanted to soothe Phil as best he could, and he wanted to be soothed, too. They were both coiled springs right now with no release in sight. Steve peeled Phil’s shirt off and leaned over to shuck his pants off as well, and he felt Phil’s fingers card through his hair as he pulled the pants off of Phil’s legs. He got up and gently pushed Phil into the bed and then hung the suit up in the walk-in closet near the door. He pulled off his own jeans and t-shirt and crawled into bed with Phil, who curled into Steve’s arms as soon as Steve hit the mattress. Steve held him firmly and quietly until the trembling ceased and Phil finally relaxed. Steve ran his hand up and down Phil’s arm and as Phil’s breathing evened out and the tension left his face, Steve whispered, “We’ll find him.”_

_Phil mumbled, “We lose each other too often. I’m getting tired of it.”_

_And Steve recalled finding Clint through loss, feeling lost again after Phil returned, and then being found, and all the joy that brought. Clint was so much like Bucky, with his devil-may-care grin and penchant for trouble and fierce loyalty and ability to knock Steve off kilter in a very good way. Phil was, frankly, a lot like Peggy, all competence and hidden strength and much more than his appearance let on. Steve didn’t care if it was weird or morbid or unfair to compare all of them that way; he counted himself lucky to have found two such people he could love in this new world and who seemed to love him back._

_And he knew that he and Phil would tear the world apart looking for Clint._

Steve finishes his drawing and Clint still sits with his knees up to his chest and watches the trees. Steve can hear Phil building a fire in the brick pit behind them, and he leans into Clint’s shoulder. “It’s an amazing view, isn’t it?” Steve asks.

Clint is silent for a while, and then he whispers, “I don’t deserve to see this sort of thing.”

Steve sits back and fixes Clint with a concerned stare. “What? Why on earth not?”

Clint sighs and gives a strangled laugh. “Two of us survived. It was a six man team and two of us survived.” He sucks in a deep breath and spreads his legs out in front of him. Phil sits down on the other side of him at that moment and Clint looks over at him. “Four agents were killed. Six civilians. Tortured, all of ‘em.”

“We weren’t sure if you knew about the civilians, Clint,” Phil says quietly. “These guys were crazy.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes before something begins to dawn on Steve, something almost too terrible to wrap his head around . “Clint,” he says gravely. “Clint, if you were in that room the whole time and you know exactly how many people were killed…oh God. Did you have to watch all of them? Did they make you watch?”

Clint stands up abruptly and wraps his arms around his waist, his body language answering the question ahead of his mouth. Phil and Steve stand, too.

“Clint…” Phil says, and Clint steps backward and looks at both of them with tear-filled eyes.

He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to speak. “Every single one. And I couldn’t do a god damned thing to stop them.” He looks hard at Steve. “Not a thing.” He turns toward the fire pit and walks over and throws himself down in one of the red chairs. He looks up again, the words now flowing forth unhindered. “They had me hopped up on amphetamines so I couldn’t sleep. So I could hear everything. I was so focused and jittery I couldn’t keep my eyes shut very long. Had to watch, and I …had to listen. Every god damned time.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Stanton didn’t scream at all. Loudmouthed motherfucker back at base, and every time we played video games together he’d talk and cuss a blue streak. Even over the comms he was almost as bad as me. But when he died? Not a fucking word….Jenkins cussed until he ran out of air. Pentress….goddamned  Pentress…and Johnston mumbled. How weird is that? Mumbled as the…as the blood ran down his chin and the air left his lungs. Don’t know what the hell he was mumbling, but that’s the crap I know now. . . How our people act as they’re being killed slowly in front of me.”

He closes his eyes and leans back in the chair.  After a minute, Phil starts the fire, and the three of them sit in silence as the sun goes down over the flame-colored trees.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Real Life and a difficult chapter make this very late. I apologize for taking so long between updates. WARNING: This chapter is much more graphic than any yet. If graphic bothers you, you may have trouble with this chapter. It’s not as graphic as some I’ve read, but it’s more than I’ve done before. Thanks to dysprositos for going through two drafts of this, and reining it in for me.

Clint watches Phil build a fire in the fire pit, and sees Steve out of the corner of his eye as he sits down next to him and picks up his paper again. Clint loves watching Steve draw. He can see the blank page and he knows with a strange excitement that something beautiful is waiting there for Steve to show him. He’s known a lot of performers in his life, a lot of talented people, but he’s never met an artist before Steve. It’s a different kind of performance, a slow build, an exercise in patience, and Clint knows patience. So he always watches Steve when he can, has even gotten to the point of annoying Steve (“Clint! Stop leaning over my shoulder. I’ll show you as soon as I’m finished.”), and tonight he has a weird compulsion to watch Steve’s page in anticipation.

So he wraps his arms around himself as Phil builds the fire and leans a little bit so that he can see what Steve is drawing. He thinks it will be dark; he just gave away the second worst piece of darkness about the last month, and has been a mess for the two days they’ve been on this crazy trip. He knows that Steve probably isn’t drawing pretty scenery anymore – that had been before Clint’s confession.

He isn’t sure why he told them; he wasn’t going to tell them. He doesn’t want to tell them anything. He doesn’t deserve to get absolution for what he did, and telling them about it seems to him to be asking for something he doesn’t deserve.

It seems that Phil has been processing what Clint said while he builds the fire, because as he lights it and watches as the starter bricks catch the dry wood and flames flicker up, he sits down next to Clint and reaches for his hand. God, he loves Phil’s hands. So sure, so steadfast, so kind. He wants to reach out but tells himself no, no contact, he’s just working up the strength to leave them. He won’t let himself do this. But he is weak right now and reaches out anyway, resting his bandaged arm on Phil’s sure hand, shuddering with relief at the contact.

“It’s not your fault, Clint, that they died,” Phil says quietly. “These men were sadists hell-bent on punishing anyone connected to power. The civilians they chose were in politics, low-level officials, a city judge. They made you watch, but you couldn’t have saved them. You were stuck and drugged. It wasn’t your fault.” He sighs and stares into the fire. “If we had figured all of this out sooner we could have saved them, but we didn’t.”

And Phil sitting there blaming himself and SHIELD for what happened in that rotten room in that run-down warehouse? That’s ridiculous, so Clint laughs. Phil looks at him oddly, and Clint just pulls his hand away. His laughter is a little hysterical as he adds, “That’s bullshit, Phil. It really is.”

“Why?” Phil says harshly. “If we had figured out what happened to your team, we would have come and got you.”

 

“Yeah, but you didn’t know, and so you weren’t in control. And that doesn’t make what happened there _your_ fault at all,” Clint says, his voice thick with anger. Phil didn’t know. He didn’t need to know, but Clint wouldn’t let him beat himself up for it. Not when it was all Clint’s fault. Again.

“Clint,” Steve said, setting down his pencil and leaning forward. “It seems to me that the only people to blame for what happened in that warehouse were those crazies.”

“They were, too, Clint. They were crazy,” Phil says quietly.

“I _know_ ,” Clint replies, staring into the fire. “I don’t want to talk about them,” he adds, crossing his arms across his chest.

Phil and Steve nod and the three of them sit quietly around the fire for a while. Phil gets up and pulls steaks off of the grill and disappears into the kitchen of the cabin, emerging a few minutes later with plates of steak, potatoes, and salad. Clint smiles to himself because this used to be their favorite meal to celebrate a few weeks of good missions back home. Phil is trying.

“Thanks, Phil,” he says as Phil hands him a plate and shrugs.

“It’s easy food,” Phil replies as they all dig in.

The fire, the good food, the stars beginning to emerge in the night sky, all of these make Clint feel like things are on pause, which is good for him. He focuses on his food, listens to the night insects begin to sing, listens as Steve puts his drawing aside and talks to Phil about baseball playoffs and microbreweries. Clint lets it all become a quiet hum in the background for a while, and then he startles, realizing that he hasn’t said ‘I’m sorry’ in more than an hour. His hands start to shake, so he sets his plate on the ground next to him and claims to Phil and Steve that he’s just not that hungry tonight. They go on talking and Clint stands, moves closer to the fire pit, and stares into the orange and blue flames until the color fills his eyes and burns itself onto his retinas. He finally blinks, but then begins his mental litany of apologies. He begins with Pentress.

_Rough hands woke him, yanking him by the hair and shoving his chest backward into the chair. Clint’s eyes flew open and he cringed. The burly, bald guy in a cut off t-shirt and jeans stood over him and leered. “Time for your meds, Avenger,” he said, spitting the title out like an obscenity between his yellowing teeth. He tore the gag out of Clint’s mouth and all Clint wanted to do was swallow, but his mouth was dry and sore and there was nothing there._

_“Open up,” the big man growled, but Clint couldn’t obey, even though it had happened every day since they’d arrived, sometimes twice a day. He couldn’t because he didn’t know what they were giving him, only that it was making him sick, jumpy, nervous, and angrier than he’d ever been, which was saying something. So he didn’t want it, and he clenched his jaw shut, even as he recognized it as the first steps of a familiar routine. The man moved a hand to Clint’s jaw and squeezed, forcing Clint’s mouth open hard enough to leave bruises on his cheeks. He pushed two dry pills into Clint’s mouth and then squeezed it shut, pinched his nose, and held Clint tight._

_Clint squirmed, writhed, tried to keep from swallowing, but it didn’t work. He finally had to swallow as his vision grayed on the edges, and the pills tasted like chalk going down. The man let go and Clint gasped, coughed, and felt a slap across his cheek. His eyes watered and he lowered his head, but he heard the door open behind him and a familiar voice shouted, “Barton! Holy shit, Barton!” Clint turned to see Agent Chris Pentress being dragged into the room._

_Pentress and Clint were friends, often finding themselves going out for a beer when they were both alone on a night off, or playing pool in the rec hall on off hours. They were fairly consistent sparring partners – Pentress was a scrappy fighter and a good contrast to Natasha. Even after the Loki incident and Clint’s work with the Avengers, Pentress never treated Clint differently, telling him once that he admired Clint’s tenacity and ability to ‘hang with the big guys.’_

_Now Pentress was being tied to the wall, and Clint was tied to a chair, and Clint felt fear and nausea course through his veins.  If they made him do to Pentress what they’d tried to make him do to the others over the last few days, he didn’t know how the hell he’d survive it, but he did know that the low he’d been on for the last few days would become a bottomless pit._

_His gag was cutting into his cheeks and he knew it was useless, but he struggled against his bonds anyway, groaning and clenching his eyes as he did. He had to get away because he couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t. He opened his eyes and saw Pentress tied to the wall looking in pained curiosity at Clint and Clint decided they could kill him. That was it. He would let them kill him, and that was his only way out of this, though a small part of his brain was screaming for Phil and the team to come find them now, and he had a sinking suspicion that killing Clint was nowhere on their agenda. Driving him insane, apparently, was._

_Pentress must have realized something bad was happening. “Clint, what are they doing? We thought you escaped! Oh hell, Clint, we needed you to have escaped! What’s going on, Clint?” His voice rose in desperation and Clint couldn’t answer, just sat there struggling, mute, with blood running down his chin from the gag in his mouth. Clint saw the burly man who had brought Pentress in slug him in the gut and then the jaw, silencing his questions._

_Clint watched helplessly as his friend and colleague was beaten, and Pentress finally cried out again, a wordless groan, and a silky voice from behind Clint broke in and said, “Stop.” Pentress fell silent and the voice added, “His name may be Clint, but we call him Hawkeye here,” and Pentress’ pain-filled eyes snapped over to Clint._

_The man behind Clint stepped into view, his deep blue three piece suit contrasting starkly with the drab dust of the room around them. He had a hard, chiseled face and green eyes that made Clint shudder involuntarily each time he saw them. He was in his forties and his dark, neatly cropped hair was graying at the temples. He stepped over to Clint and ran his hand down Clint’s cheek slowly._

_“We call him Hawkeye here because he is an Avenger. He . . . Avenges things, don’t you Hawkeye?” Clint clenched his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see those green eyes. The man chuckled. “Well, he did. Now we’re altering his role.”_

_The man crossed to Pentress and pulled out a knife from his lapel pocket, a long knife with a sleek blade and dark hilt. It glittered despite the dust in the room, and Pentress blanched as the blade sunk into his arm. The man pulled the knife free and showed it to Clint, wiping the blood from the tip with a white handkerchief. “You know how it goes today, don’t you Avenger? Nod twice and we finish him off.”_

_Pentress swore loudly and tears leapt to Clint’s eyes. He shook his head, no, and the man just laughed. “No? Well, you can refuse to mete out mercy, but he’ll suffer like the others. Don’t you save lives as an Avenger? Isn’t that your job description? You couldn’t do it the before, though, could you? You couldn’t save that poor woman and you wouldn’t tell us to finish her quickly. So she died slowly, painfully, screaming until the end. The gentleman a few days ago suffered the same fate because you wouldn’t tell us to go quickly. You even let another colleague die yesterday.”_

_Time had lost meaning for Clint after they killed Stanton, and it startled him that it was just yesterday. Clint choked on the bile that rose at the memory and the tears fell too freely on his cheeks. The sadist in front of him figured it out. “You know this man better, though, don’t you? A colleague, yes, but maybe more than that? A friend? A lover? Well, you don’t want him to suffer like the others, do you? You want his death to be quick and merciful. I can do that. He’ll hardly feel a thing.”_

_Clint looked sharply at Pentress and he choked as Pentress tried to pull himself straighter, to appear stronger. Their eyes met and Clint held his friend’s gaze. Pentress spoke in a voice hoarse with pain. “Clint,” he said, and then was smacked again and the burly man shoved his hand across Pentress’ mouth, muffling him. They were going to make Clint decide._

_The man in the suit stepped close to Pentress again and drew his knife down the side of his face, a thin rivulet of blood streaming behind the blade. Clint didn’t know what to do. What if the team arrived in the next ten minutes to save them? Would Pentress survive ten more minutes? But if they didn’t come, then the maniac in the suit would eviscerate his friend._

_He stared as the suited man turned back to him. “You don’t know what to do, right, Hawkeye? Kill your friend or watch him suffer. A hard choice. A choice Avengers don’t usually have to make! You’re simply weapons pointed at a target. You just follow orders like every other drone in our government. Well, now you’re in charge.” Clint saw Pentress’ eyes fill with tears of his own, and he looked at Clint in pain and desperation; Pentress would be no help here._

_Clint could feel the drugs rage through his system. He wanted to shut his eyes but he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t keep any part of himself in the same position for more than a few seconds. He struggled against his bonds, tried to chew on the gag, and tugged his feet against the bands holding them in place. He growled in anger through his gag. He stalled. It didn’t work. He looked at Pentress and saw the suited man’s knife poised at his stomach._

_“Come on, Hawkeye,” the man said softly. “Tell me what to do, now. You nod twice and I make it quick. You don’t, and I let him watch his insides fall out.”_

_Pentress was beyond fear. He was hysterical, and the man holding his hand over his mouth was straining every muscle to keep him quiet._

_Clint flashed back to their nights out together, their joking, their laughter, Pentress’ infectious grin and faith in Clint.    All of that added up to something, a weight that hung heavy from Clint’s shoulders.  And so he nodded, twice, stiffly, and the man in the suit kept his promise and motioned to the man holding Pentress._

_When he snapped his neck, Clint heard the sound and his stomach heaved. He felt tears stream down his face and time disappeared in an angry, hot rage. It could have been hours or days, but the next time they brought someone into the room, he couldn’t close his eyes for very long.  Rage coursed through his veins as he watched a stranger dragged into his sight. He had chosen death for one friend and let three other people die at the hands of these psychos, and the words ‘your choice’ burned into his memory like a metal brand. He didn’t know what to do. So he chose mercy again, and had to listen to the snap of the neck again, and was sick again, and if they kept making him do this he knew he wouldn’t survive._

_Some long and fluid time later, they brought another stranger and made Clint choose again. He chose mercy, and heard the snap of the neck, and threw up around the gag. When his captors cleaned around him and left him there, he began to block the room out. His eyes were open, and his body was tense and angry and scared and sick, but he took himself out, sent himself down a long tunnel, away from there.  When they brought Johnston in for his death, Clint heard and saw, but couldn’t stand the thought of the sound of the neck and so he did not stay. Johnston mumbled until he was quiet, and they took him away.  Clint saw his bloody corpse, but from the safe distance of a long tunnel with no sound. More strangers and Stanton suffered and Clint vaguely wondered what the right choice was, but he never really figured it out, except to not choose anything and to disappear while being present._

‘I’m sorry, Chris,’ Clint says in his head as he clenches his arms tightly around his chest in front of the fire. And even though Pentress and two strangers are the only people on his list who got the apology for being killed by Clint _that_ way, the other three agents and the other strangers got the same apology for _not_ being killed by him. Even now, he really doesn’t understand what the right answer was and figures that, in the end, he killed all of them one way or another.

He stands by the fire and loses time again.  After a while, he feels Steve’s hands on his arms, pulling him back toward the cabin.

“Come on, Clint,” Steve says gently, “We should go sleep.”

Clint just nods, distrusting his own voice, and follows Steve and Phil inside. They get ready for bed, and Phil sets out Clint’s pills again. Tonight Clint steps forward and takes them quickly, grateful for the fact that they aren’t being forced down his throat and that they don’t taste like chalk. He changes into sleep pants and looks at the room for the first time. There is a king sized bed in the room and that is all.

Phil seems to see the question in Clint’s eyes. “We can try sleeping like we did before at home, or there’s another room with two queens.” He speaks gently, hope in his voice.

Clint looks around the room. He doesn’t deserve the comfort of his lovers, and he can’t look them in the eye. He is afraid of looking them in the eye because he is afraid of what choices they will offer him. Choices are devastating and Clint knows they should be avoided whenever possible. Once, as the man with the green eyes taunted him, Clint had a fleeting thought that Loki made him kill his friends and colleagues, but he never made him choose, something for which Clint is perversely thankful. So tonight he will not choose, and instead just shrugs and says, “Whatever.”

He lays down on the very edge of the bed, hugs a pillow, and cringes away from them, not permitting himself to get too close. He envies them their arms around each other and their bodies pressed close, and just before he closes his eyes, he sees Steve’s notebook on the floor near the bed, open to the page he was working on, and it’s Clint and Phil, holding hands by the fire.  Clint winces and knows he doesn’t deserve comfort anymore, or choices.  But he can’t avoid sleep, and so he uses it to distance himself from the choice he knows he has to make.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there is an epilogue coming, even though this may feel like an end to some. Thanks to dysprositos for the confidence votes, the suggestions about the ending, and general tense and comma wrangling. If anyone has any kittens to spare, send them her way. She likes kittens. Thanks to everyone who has added this to their subscriptions and bookmarks. Constructive criticism is certainly welcome. Epilogue should be up in a day or two.

When Phil wakes in the morning, Clint’s not in bed. He tries not to panic, but this is the first time since they found Clint that he hasn’t been aware of where he is, thanks to the stupidly comfortable bed. Steve is still sleeping, so Phil climbs carefully out and throws on a blue and gold sweatshirt and some blue running pants. He purposefully wanders into the kitchen and he sees Clint pulling on his coat.  Clint zips it wordlessly and just gazes up at Coulson. Something is off. Phil knows that everything is off right now, but this is different. Clint is moving with a purpose and Clint hasn’t moved with a purpose since they found him.

‘Different’ might not necessarily be ‘better.’

“Are you going out back?” Phil asks him gently.

Clint nods. “Yeah. Thought I’d sit on the overlook for a bit. It’s quiet.”

“I’ll bring you some coffee in a bit?”

“Sure.”

Phil watches as Clint walks out back, pauses at the fire pit, and then walks over the overlook and sits down, wrapping his arms around his knees. Phil watches  Clint  sit for a few minutes, occasionally moving from hugging his knees to cradling his head, and Phil knows he’s upset. He doesn’t know what to do about it, though, especially if Clint won’t talk. So he goes to wake Steve and fix the coffee, and about ten minutes later he returns to the window to check on Clint.

He’s gone.

“Steve!” Phil calls as he goes outside, walking over to where Clint was sitting and hoping he’d just wandered down the hill a bit. But Phil can’t see him at all. Steve comes outside, pulling on an Army sweatshirt.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Clint left.” His heart is racing, panic rising again. He turns and looks at Steve.

“Just for a walk? He’ll be okay,” Steve says, and then, after a pause, “But it is strange, isn’t it?”

Phil nods and heads into the house, a sinking feeling in his gut. He storms up to the bedroom and heads to the desk, where his holster lay empty. “Shit!” he says as Steve comes into the room. He holds up the holster, and Steve looks at him with horror on his face. They both run. When they get to the overlook, Phil reaches out to Steve and they stop.

“He’s good at disappearing, but he’s not himself these days. Which way?” Phil says.

“I don’t know, but probably opposite the trail,” Steve replies, obviously trying to still his breathing.

Phil nods and he sends Natasha a quick text and then they set off, the trail to the cabin behind them. Phil knows they’re going to have to get lucky in order to find him, and he’s kicking himself. He knew Clint was a flight risk. Knew he was a suicide risk. But he just went to make coffee. He went to make coffee and then he was going to try and get Clint to talk to him. Really talk. But now, now it might be too late, and the woods become a blur as Phil picks up his pace.

They walk for a few minutes, and then there he is, holding the gun loose in his right hand, standing at the edge of a cliff, the orange and brown and green sea of trees spread behind him in a desperate last gasp of fall color. Clint looks up at them, and Phil is taken aback. For a moment, he sees _his_ Clint, the confident, cocky sniper who isn’t afraid of anything, holding his gun and ready to fight.

 And then Phil sees his eyes, stormy, darting, wild.

This is not his Clint at all.

“Clint,” Phil says, unsure of where to go from here.

“No, Phil,” Clint says, taking a step backward, closer to the edge of the cliff. “I need to do this. You can’t help me.”

“Let us try,” Phil pleads.

“Clint, we need you to not do this,” Steve says quietly, standing still. “We need you.”

Clint laughs mirthlessly. “Really? Are you sure? You’ve got each other; you’ll get through this.”

“We might,” Phil says, knowing that more guilt isn’t going to help the situation. “But I don’t want to. Give me the gun.”

Clint pulls it up and looks at it, shaking his head and grimacing. “No, it’s my choice. My choice how I die. You _don’t_ get to choose for me.” His voice is steady, hard, and uncharacteristically cold.

“No one should choose that,” Phil says, looking over at Steve. They have to get the gun and get him away from the cliff. After that they’ll deal with him somehow. Get him back to SHIELD and the psychologists there who can try to help. He looks at the gun and back to Steve, hoping he’ll get the message. Steve’s fast enough and strong enough to do this, especially if Phil can distract Clint.

Clint glares at Phil, and says, “No one should choose? Never? I have. I choose how people die all the time. Do I follow orders and they die by my bow, or do I let them live? Do they die slow or do they die quick? I get to choose that.” The gun in his hand starts to shake and he looks at it again. They are at a standstill for what feels like eternity to Phil. Then they hear a noise behind Phil and Steve, and the gun steadies as Clint points it at a spot over Phil’s shoulder.

“What. The Fuck.  Are you doing here?” he snarls, and Phil turns to see Natasha standing just a few inches behind him.

“Coulson called me. I was nearby in case he needed help, and he called me. Told me what he thought you were doing and so I came. I deserve a chance to witness this as it goes down, don’t you think? Your closest friend? The one you saved? I get to be here if you’re doing this.”

“Fuck, Natasha,” Clint whispers, anguish crossing his face. “You don’t understand.”

“None of us do, Clint,” Phil says gently. “Tell us what happened.”  Phil knows this all ties back to the op. He knows it all goes back to that one room. “How did your team get caught?”

Clint is startled. It’s not where he expected the conversation to go, clearly. He doesn’t answer right away, just keeps staring at the gun in his hand. After a moment he raises the gun to his head and Phil’s stomach turns and he feels Natasha stiffen behind him. This is happening. He’s watching his lover and best friend in the world put a gun to his own head, and he doesn’t know what to do to stop it.

He suddenly remembers the twenty-four year-old punk that SHIELD sent him to take down, the one with the cocky grin and lost eyes.  Clint was looking for a place to put his loyalty then, had probably been looking for that ever since his own father betrayed that loyalty with alcohol and led him down a path where his strongest character trait was completely irrelevant. Phil saw this, saw a smart, resourceful young man in a very bad situation. So Phil brought him in, and SHIELD gave him a good place for his loyalty, and slowly, his eyes became less lost.

Clint put loyalty above everything, and this time wouldn’t have been different.

“You were supposed to be their eyes, Clint. What happened that got you caught with them? Who did you try and save?” Phil asks, gently, trying to ignore the gun. “Please tell us this, at least.”

Clint takes a shuddering breath, and Phil sees the tired lines in his face, the hollow cheeks that are usually fuller, the jutting chin that is usually more sloped. He notes that Steve has shifted his stance just a bit, clearly looking for an opportunity to disarm Clint, but Clint is too tired to notice, thank goodness.

“What happened in Peru, Clint?” Phil prods.

“Nothing big,” Clint begins, tears leaking slowly from his eyes, unnoticed. “You wouldn’t think. . .” he draws a breath. “The plan was in place, we’d left the safe house with our assignments. The mark was supposed to be at a meeting out at this compound in the jungle and we had two agents ready to infiltrate under cover and two going in hot as backup.” He paused, the gun still in place at his temple. “I was up high like I was supposed to be and Johnston was about a half mile out, coordinating.”

Phil cringed. Johnston should have known better than that. Any mission in the jungle you’re supposed to keep at least a mile radius from your team. It’s harder to beat a retreat in the jungle.

“The thing was, there was one piece of intel someone missed. They missed it, Phil,” he cried desperately. “How the hell were they supposed to know that Jenkins would be made by someone who was working at the compound?  The guy wasn’t even involved in the meeting. He was doing a weapons deal on the side, not part of this whole thing at all. But he made Jenkins – we didn’t know it soon enough, though. Suddenly the place is on lockdown and Jenkins is shot and the backup agents are trying to get him out and Johnston?”

 The gun wavers at Clint’s head as he pauses, then steadies.

“Johnston was too close,” Clint says, and Coulson swears. It cost them. Clint continues, “Johnston got snagged by the guards, and I was supposed to finish the job and get to the rendezvous point but I couldn’t finish the job ‘cause the mark knew we were there. So I waited. I had to wait. I couldn’t leave my spot while they were on high alert and so I had to wait. I did. But . . . not long enough. They knew that there’d be a sniper, and they caught me with a tranq gun.”

_Someone who wasn’t supposed to be at the compound and a handler half a mile too close. One minor mistake and one stray they couldn’t have calculated for if the crosscheck system didn’t catch it._

“And when they took me to the guy who made us –“he breaks off and the gun wavers, so Steve moves. He ducks under Clint’s elbow and snags the gun and Clint’s arm, bringing him down into a crumpled heap at Phil’s feet. Steve throws the gun to the side and Clint cries out, an anguished cry.

Phil kneels down and Steve pulls Clint into his lap on the ground as Clint trembles and shakes and cries out, “No, no, no, no, no let me, please let me go, please.  Let me do this!”

And Phil’s heart is in his throat because after all of these years of knowing Clint Barton, he’s never seen him coming apart at the seams like this. He’s seen the seams strain and stretch, but here they are popping apart and Phil doesn’t know what to do about it.

Natasha kneels down next to them and puts her hand on Clint’s cheek. She leans over and says something in Russian, gentle but firm. Clint stiffens and looks up at her. She looks at Steve and gestures him back – “loosen your grip. You’re scaring him.” So Steve does, and Clint sits up, tears streaming down his face.

“They recognized me!” he says. “The man who made us and led the catch recognized me from the start.” Phil watches as Clint pulls his knees up in a familiar defensive position, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“So he made you watch,” Steve says quietly, running his hand up and down Clint’s back rhythmically. Clint wrapped his arms around the back of his neck now.

“Yeah,” he whispers, and then, “No. I mean—yes, they made me watch. They took us back to that warehouse – a fucking long trip wherever it was, and then they tied me up and gagged me and kept beating me up. Then they started bringing people in. . .” his voice trails off.

“He made you watch because you’re an Avenger?” Natasha asks, looking at Phil.

Clint shudders violently and Steve leans forward, not wrapping him up, but just getting closer. Clint shakes his head, hard, and Phil feels his stomach turn. There was more than this. More than just watching.

Clint’s voice is rough, low, and halting, but he tells them. “They made me choose whether they killed them fast or killed them slow,” he said, looking up and locking eyes with Phil. “Said I was an Avenger, a weapon who never made choices of my own, and now they were going to make me pay by making me choose how those people died.”

Natasha rocks back on her heels in surprise, and Steve’s hand stops on Clint’s back, and Phil just stares.

 They made Clint choose. And now he won’t choose anything, couldn’t, until he found Phil’s gun and knew he had one choice left he _can_ make.

Phil wants to look away, wants to go find those people wherever SHIELD has them and tear them apart, limb by limb. Instead, he reaches out for Clint’s hands and pulls him up into an embrace and suddenly Clint is crying again, hard, wrecked sobs with frantic words jarring them. “I couldn’t choose and they died slow and awful. And then I did choose, and it was just as awful and they died anyway, and then I thought if I choose quick then what if you guys came? What if I told them to give them mercy and a minute after their neck was snapped you guys showed up? What was I supposed to do, Phil? How the fuck was I supposed to choose? They kept bringing people in there and I didn’t know what to do!”

And then he loses it in Phil’s arms, just weeping and tearing at Phil’s shirt with his hands and now Steve and Natasha are there, wrapping him up in their arms from behind and the three of them hold Clint until the sobs die out minutes, seconds, hours later.

Clint is asleep, passed out, and Steve gently lifts him up and sets off carrying him back to the cabin as Phil and Natasha stand there staring after him.

“What do we do now, Natasha?” Phil asks as he reaches down and picks up his gun, flicking the cartridge into his palm and shoving it in his pocket. His voice feels empty, hollow. He doesn’t have anything left. He doesn’t know the answer to Clint’s questions, and in the end they weren’t quick enough, they didn’t come in time for those people and Clint paid the price for their tardiness.

“You sit with him. You let him scream, and let him sit, and you stay beside him. It’s out now. That’s a start, right?” She says, gently, putting her hand in his and pulling him toward the cabin.

He walks with her and they find Clint on the large leather couch in the family room of the cabin, still asleep. Steve is sitting on the floor next to him, carding his fingers gently through Clint’s hair. He looks up at their entry and stands, tucking the blanket he’s thrown over Clint a little tighter around his shoulders and then coming over and leaning into Phil’s arm.

“Thanks, Natasha,” he says quietly and she offers a small smile.

“I’m not staying long. Thanks for calling me, though,” she says to Phil. 

He shrugs. “I figured you were close,”

She smiles. “I’ll go home this time.”

“You don’t have to,” he says.

“I’ll stay until he wakes. He needs you two, though.”

“What are we going to do?” Steve says, quietly. “Maybe we should take him back to SHIELD right away. Let the psychologists help.”

Phil steps over toward the refrigerator and opens it, pulls out a container of pasta sauce and a container of chicken, holding them both up. “We let him make some easy choices for a few days first.”

Steve and Natasha smile.

“We’ll try and get his permission to use what he said in a report to Fury and the psych staff and send it off tonight. If they tell us to come straight back we will. But if it’s okay with them, we’ll stay here.  Let him choose what to eat for a couple days. When to sleep. Where to go and what to do. We keep a close eye on him, though.”

“Watch for those stares,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” Phil replies. “Try to pull him out of that, and let him see that some choices are safe.”

The three of them agree, Phil sits down to draft a report, and they wait for Clint to wake up.

Phil’s report begins with the sentence, _“It was two pieces of minutiae that triggered the capture of the SHIELD team and the death of several agents and civilians.”_

That night, Clint chooses pasta for dinner and then says goodbye to Natasha.    He chooses to sleep pressed behind Phil, and in front of Steve, and together they hold him through his nightmares once again. Phil stays awake most of the night, gently stroking Clint’s hand that is draped over his waist, and Phil is grateful, and scared, and determined to see Clint through this, to show him the minutiae and try to convince him that there was no right answer, and those choices weren’t really his at all.

 

 


	8. Epilogue

They make it two more days in the cabin. Clint sleeps fitfully at night, and spends most of his time sitting on the hill while Steve draws and Phil reads. He gives them permission to share his story with Fury and with the psychologist, and both suggest that they come back to SHIELD sooner than Steve had hoped.

But they take two days. During those two days Clint chooses at least one meal a day, chooses to take the medicine without complaint, chooses to go on two quiet walks with Steve, and chooses to sleep in between Phil and Steve each night.

There’s not much else he’ll choose, and he doesn’t talk much more about what happened. The first afternoon, he sits on the overlook and calls Natasha on his cell phone. They talk for a long time, but Phil and Steve don’t press him for what they discussed.

Steve watches carefully. He watches Clint and Phil, sees how Phil is cautious, patient, and gentle with his lover. Steve knows that Phil is used to being able to control situations. So his hear t breaks a little when Phil leans into his arms the first night as they watch the fire and Phil shudders, saying “I just want to fix him. I wish we could just _fix_ him.”

“We are,” Steve whispers into Phil’s hair, rubbing Phil’s arm as he speaks. “We really are.”

But it’s hard.

The day after Clint’s suicide threat, they pay careful attention and realize just how often Clint is ‘zoning out,’ so Steve starts trying to keep Clint engaged in conversation more often. It works a few times during the day, but it also doesn’t stop Clint from not hearing Phil or Steve for long stretches at a time, no matter what they say.

Phil drags Clint into the kitchen on the second day, asking him not just to choose the evening meal but to help make it.  Clint freezes for a moment, but then shrugs, saying, “It’s something to do.” He makes a hell of a stir-fry and Steve feels warm as he eats it.

Steve finds a baseball game for them to watch that night, and Natasha stops back in, shrugging and saying, “I tried to stay away. Only managed to wait for an invite.” Steve gives her a hug and then all four of them cram onto the couch watching the playoffs, eating popcorn and debating the changes to the game that Steve just can’t leave alone.

When they get back to SHIELD, Clint is escorted to Director Fury’s office alone, and Phil and Steve are directed to the psychologist’s office. They are told that suicide threats often come again, and that  keeping Clint on suicide watch for at least a couple of weeks while he’s in intensive therapy would be difficult if he went back to the Tower right away. Steve and Phil agree, but also tell the therapist that they won’t be going back to the Tower either, not until Clint is ready.

The psychologist asks a lot of questions about the trip, about the stories Clint told, about how Phil and Steve are dealing with this. Phil closes up and Steve has to draw him out, but finally they both admit how frustrated and worried and tired they are as well. The psychologist suggests some individual sessions for both of them.

When Clint is finished in Fury’s office, he emerges looking pale and tired, but the therapist wants to start right away. They all look at each other and Steve says, “This is going to be work, right?” and Clint nods and goes silently into the psych department. Steve turns and Fury is standing there, his eyes dark and filled with concern when they rest on Phil. Steve watches as Phil goes to him and shakes his hand, and he sees Fury hang onto Phil’s hand a moment longer than normal, sees him catch Phil’s eye and hold his gaze, and then Fury looks at both of them and says, “You brought him back safe and a step closer to better. Good work.”

Phil says, “Almost didn’t,” and Fury nods, letting go of Phil’s hand and motions toward his office. “Phil, come with me for a bit.” Steve knows Phil needs to brief Fury on his side of things and that’s okay. That’s Phil’s job. He watches as the two men head for Fury’s office. He pulls out his own cell phone and calls Tony, telling him that they’re back in town but will probably stay at SHIELD for a while. Tony’s upset, wants his people back at the Tower, but he relents when Steve promises that they’ll be over for dinner once the dust settles. It’ll be good for all of them.

Clint emerges from psych an hour and a half later looking shaken, and he just folds himself into a corner of the couch in Phil’s base quarters after Steve walks him back there. Phil’s still in with Fury. Steve sits down close to Clint and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, afraid to try to touch Clint no matter how much he wants to.  After a few minutes, he is surprised when Clint unfolds from the corner and leans into Steve’s arms, letting him wrap him up and pull him close the way they always did when Clint was having a nightmare during the months Phil was still believed dead. Steve holds him close and pushes his cheek into Clint’s hair, getting from Clint what he needs just as much as Clint is getting it from him.

They stay there until Phil finishes with Fury an hour later, and when Phil comes home they fix a quiet meal in his kitchen and crawl into bed, all of them exhausted.

A few days pass like this – therapy in the morning, PT in the afternoon, more therapy before a late dinner. Steve works and looks over some pending missions while Clint is in therapy, works with him during PT, and works out himself during the late afternoon sessions. Phil is swept back into meetings, briefings, and his usual overwork, but he makes it a point to be around for dinner and tries not to have to go back to work afterward.

By the time dinner ends each night Clint is exhausted, stumbling into a shower, maybe watching a game or a movie on the couch, and then tumbling into bed. But he starts to sleep a little better, and his eyes start to look brighter after a few days. He’s still not showing much interest in things, though, and still zones out a couple times a day.

One afternoon after Clint’s PT, Bruce comes by the mess hall where Steve and Clint are having some coffee and sharing what Clint keeps calling “the good, old-fashioned newspaper” whenever Steve asks if he wants a section. “Sure, I’ll have a section of that good, old-fashioned newspaper,” he says each time. Steve likes Tony’s tablets, but this is something he can hold onto and so he does, despite Clint’s jokes.

Bruce walks up and says, “Hey guys, I was hoping I’d find you here.” It’s the first time he’s seen Clint out of the hospital in a while and his grin lights up his face. “Clint, it’s good to see you.”

Clint nods and smiles, gesturing to a seat next to Steve. “Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he says and doesn’t sit down.

“What’s up, Bruce?” Steve asks.

“Clint,” Bruce says, “I was wondering if you had an hour or so to help me out with something.”

Clint looks up, curious. “Um, I guess?”

“Good. Remember that time you helped me do some measurements in my lab a while ago?” Clint nods and Bruce continues. “Well, I’ve got some more stuff like that to do here, and a couple of the SHIELD nerds want to help, but I told them I’d already got someone to assist me – that is, if you’re interested. I just thought it would be a change of pace for both of us. I’m kind of tired of hanging around the nerds, but this has to get done.”

Clint looks down at the newspaper and over at Steve, who shrugs. “Okay, I guess so,” Clint says, and he stands up and drains his coffee cup. “I’ve got psych in an hour, though.”

“Sure, I’ll make sure we’re done by then,” Bruce replies.

“See you back at quarters later, Steve,” Clint says, and Steve just grins and watches them depart.

That’s how it starts, Clint’s returning interest in the things going on around him. He talks incessantly about the experiment Bruce was working on with SHIELD at dinner that night, and Bruce steals him again the next day. The third day it happens, Steve suggests that Bruce stay for dinner, Clint suggests they go out, and Phil suggests calling Tony and Natasha to join them. They end up at Clint’s favorite Thai restaurant and Steve watches as Clint jokes with Tony and gets into a stupid-villain story trading session with Natasha, and then gets into a cooking conversation with Bruce about spicy foods. Steve catches Phil’s hand under the table at the restaurant and they sit watching and smiling, and Clint doesn’t zone out at all during the meal.

There are bad days, too, though, days where Clint comes out of his therapy sessions covered in a thin sheen of sweat and won’t talk to anyone the rest of the day, but the dissociation lessens and after about three weeks the psychologist suggests that they all head back to their home at the Tower again. They keep a careful eye on Clint, and Bruce keeps pulling him down to the lab to help. Then he gets cleared for range practice, and spends hours down there while Steve reads or works outside.

They lose sight of him one afternoon and he disappears for about two hours, scaring everyone senseless. When Natasha finally finds him in the basement of the Tower, hiding in the rafters, she drags him upstairs where he apologizes, saying that he just had to ‘get the fuck away from people for a while.’ They come to an agreement on him making sure they know where he’s going for “just a while longer,” and he follows their agreement to the letter.

It’s two months before Clint’s cleared for missions again. Fury makes sure to assign him only to Phil and the Avengers, and the light is back and Steve feels safe when he doesn’t know quite where Clint is all the time. At first, the mission preps are awful for everyone; Clint, who used to just listen for his name and play with a Rubik’s Cube otherwise, nitpicks everything, yells at Tony for not paying attention, and generally throws a temper tantrum unless every detail is accounted for. He relaxes a little after a while, but never quite goes back to the laissez-faire mission prep attitude he had before.

One night early on, after a fight with some of Doom’s goons (Clint threatens to make stickers with that printed on it – “Doom’s Goons” and Tony starts planning), Clint and Steve crash on the couch in their apartment, Phil sits in his recliner with his tablet reviewing files from the op. Clint is leaning back into Steve’s chest and Steve’s got his eyes closed, resting.

“You okay, Steve?” Clint says, gently.

Steve opens his eyes and runs his hand down Clint’s cheek. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little tired.”

Phil looks up from his work. “What about you, Clint?”

He looks up at Phil and shakes his head. “I’m okay. Glad to be working again.” He pauses and then sits up on the couch. “Thinking about Pentress.”

Steve stiffens and sees Phil do the same. This is the first time Clint has mentioned any of the agents lost in the botched Peru op. “What about?” Steve asks, gently.

“He used to find me after an Avengers op and make me go have a beer with him. Wanted the details of the fight, what it was like, how much shit Tony gave us, stuff like that. Just wanted to hear about it. I’d tell him if it wasn’t classified, and he loved hearing it. I asked him one time if he was jealous. You know, seriously asked him.” He paused for a long moment and Steve ran a hand down his back, feeling Clint relax at his touch.

“What did he say?” Phil asks.

Clint smiles. “He said he wasn’t. He said that dealing with the Avengers sounded like too goddamned much to worry about. He said I was crazy for wanting to do it and still work for SHIELD.” His breath hitched and he added, “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.”

Steve isn’t sure what to say. This feels like dangerous territory. Like if he or Phil says the wrong thing then it might be bad for Clint. He settles for, “You guys sound like you were good friends.”

“Yeah,” Clint whispers, running his hand over his face, “Yeah, we were. That’s why I chose mercy for him. That’s why I chose it.”

Phil shoves his work aside and moves to the couch next to Clint. Clint leans into him.

“I know there wasn’t a right answer,” he says quietly. “I know that now. It was just a couple of mistakes and a bunch of maniacs. But you know what?” he asks both men. Steve scoots a little closer. “I’m glad I chose mercy for him, and I’m hanging onto that. I’m glad, and it’s okay.”

Phil pulls him in and kisses him, and Steve pulls both of them into an embrace, feeling Clint breathing against his chest and feeling Phil leaning into them.

“That’s all we can do,” Steve says. “We just have to accept our choices for what they were at the time.”

The three of them sit on the couch for a while, and Clint talks more about Pentress and other friends at SHIELD, and they crash together in their bed later, finding comfort in each other and sleeping soundly the whole night through.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who has stuck with this until the end. It turned out to be difficult to write, and it definitely falls into my "someday I'd like to revisit this one and see about revising a bit" stack. At any rate, thanks also to dysprositos for beta magic. Concrit is appreciated.


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